APRIL STROM

This video will focus on how we inspire our youngest mathematicians through our AMP Camp (Arizona Mathematics Partnership). By working with middle school math teachers through a professional development program, we have developed a summer math camp for middle school students who experience the joy and excitement of learning and doing mathematics!

This video will focus on how we inspire our youngest mathematicians through our AMP Camp (Arizona Mathematics Partnership). By working with middle school math teachers through a professional development program, we have developed a summer math camp for middle school students who experience the joy and excitement of learning and doing mathematics!

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Wendy Smith

Facilitator

May 15, 2017 | 07:36 p.m.

Your AMP Camp looks like a really great experience for all involved! How do students become part of AMP Camp? Do they apply? Do teachers who participate in other aspects of AMP recruit their students for summer camp? Are the teachers who participate volunteers, or does AMP become part of their district professional development? How does AMP Camp connect to the community college partners? Do community college students help out in AMP Camp in any way? Do you have ways to stay involved with the middle school students as they move through high school?

April Strom

Lead Presenter

May 16, 2017 | 12:45 a.m.

Hi Wendy,

Thanks for your questions! Here are some answers:

Yes, students do apply for our camp. We target the schools/districts that have partnered with us on our AMP project. We ask our teachers who have participated in AMP to recruit and encourage students to apply. The teachers who participate in our camp as either teachers or supervisors are funded through the grant for their work at the camp, so no volunteers.

The main part of the AMP project is a professional development program (2 years) for middle school math teachers. Through this effort, we then recruit teachers to teach and supervise students at the camp. It's a wonderful time for the teachers to showcase the things they have learned during the PD program.

As far as the community college connection, our AMP project is fully led by CC faculty. Thus, all PD provided to the teachers is facilitated by the CC faculty. It's quite exciting that we, at the community college, have been able to lead such a large project to bring joy of teaching and learning to the middle grades.

Thank you for sharing your work. The AMP Camp sounds like a great experience for the students and one that builds students' confidence in and enjoyment of mathematics. How many students have participated? Are you doing (or planning to do) any research on the impacts of the camp on student knowledge or achievement?

Brian Drayton

Watching this video, I suspect the greatest impact of the program is teacher renewal, and that must have some long-term results in terms of teachers' innovating in their classroom, understanding mathematics more richly, and engaging their students more. Yes? In particular, I am curious whether you are seeing the math that your teachers are teaching getting deeper/more challenging/conceptually richer, as they engage with the math freshly themselves?

Having a summer camp component, for students, as part of the teacher PD is a really interesting design feature. I'm wondering if planning for the camp is part of the PD experience, or if you use student work or video from the camp in the PD. Above I see that you mentioned that just some teachers participate in the PD. I'm wondering if you have any information about the impact of the PD on teachers' classroom instruction and whether there are differences for teachers who do or do not participate in the summer camp.

Beth Burroughs

Higher Ed Faculty

May 22, 2017 | 10:58 a.m.

I'm always interested to hear students say they liked math because it was not like school. It seems like a good goal to make school "not like school."